British North America
• 18th century British America experienced a
population growth: 1700 = 250,000 by 1770=
2 million
• Colonists of different ethnic groups, races, and
religions lived in varied environments
• The abundance of land in the colonies made
labor precious, and the colonists always
needed more
This portrait of the Cheney family by an
unknown late-eighteenth-century artist
illustrates the high birthrate in colonial
America, and suggests how many years of
a woman’s life were spent bearing and
raising children.
The Growth of Slavery
• The number of southerners of African
ancestry (nearly all of them slaves) rocketed
form just over 20,000 in 1700 to well over
400,000 in 1770
• By the 1740s, the majority of southern slaves
were country – born due in part by female
slaves giving birth
• The aftermath of the Stono Rebellion
• African Roots in the Colonies
The Old Plantation, a lateeighteenth century watercolor,
depicts slaves dancing in a
plantation’s slave quarters,
perhaps at a wedding. The
musical instruments and
pottery are African in origin
while much of the clothing is of
European manufacture,
indicating the mixing of African
and white cultures among the
era’s slaves. The artist has
recently been identified as John
Rose, owner of a rice plantation
near Beaufort, South Carolina.
Prosperity in the Colonies
• Slaves’ labor bestowed prosperity on their
masters, British merchants, and the monarchy
• The southern colonies supplied 90% of all
North American exports to Britain
• White southerners caused envy and
occasional tension between rich and poor, but
remarkably little open hostility
• Politically & culturally the gentry built a selfperpetuating oligarchy – rule by the elite few
• Although colonists were sharply different
throughout British North America in the 18th
century, they shared unifying experiences:
economic roots in agriculture, a decline in the
importance of religion, all of them answered
to the British monarchy
• Colonial products spurred the development of
mass markets throughout the Atlantic world
• Extended credit available to consumers which
caused debts
• Question asked by 18th century consumers:
What do you want?
A 1732 portrait of Daniel, Peter, and Andrew Oliver,
sons of a wealthy Boston merchant
A 1732 portrait of Daniel, Peter, and Andrew
Oliver, sons of a wealthy Boston merchant. The
prominent display of their delicate hands tells
the viewer that they have never had to do
manual labor.
Religion, Enlightenment, & Revival
• Virtually all the variety of religions in the
colonies represented some form of
Christianity
• Slaves made up the largest group of nonChristian
• Roman Catholics, Protestant, Puritans,
Anglicans, Deism
• Great Awakening
• George Whitefield – revivalist in the 18th
century
George Whitefield
George Whitefield, the English evangelist
who helped to spark the Great Awakening
in the colonies. Painted around 1742 by
John Wollaston, who had emigrated from
England to the colonies, the work depicts
Whitefield’s powerful effect on male and
female listeners. It also illustrates
Whitefield’s eye problem, which led critics
to dub him “Dr. Squintum.”
• Bathsheba Kingsley, female preacher who
preached the revival message informally
• The revivals awakened and refreshed the
spiritual energies of thousands of colonists
and communicated the important message
that every soul mattered
Map 4.3 European Empires in North America, ca. 1750
Three great empires—the British, French,
and Spanish—competed for influence in
North America for much of the eighteenth
century
Trade & Conflict in North American
Borderlands
• Alone, neither New France nor New Spain
jeopardized British North America, but with
Indian allies they could become a potent force
that kept colonists on their guard
• Relations between Indians and colonists
differed from colony to colony and from year
to year
• The Spanish secured the Pacific coast
Colonial Politics in the British
Empire
• The British envisioned colonial governors as
mini-monarchs able to exert influence in the
colonies much as the king did in Britain
• Struggles between royal governors and
colonial assemblies that occurred throughout
the 18th century taught colonists a common
set of political lessons
Seven Year’s War
• For the first half of the 18th century, Britain
was at war intermittently with France and
Spain
• The conflict – contested land in the Ohio
Valley variously claimed by Virginians,
Pennsylvanians, the French, and the Indians
already living there
• French – British rivalry in the Ohio Valley
• The Albany Conference (1754) – conference to
repair trade relations and secure the Indians’
help – or at least their neutrality – against the
looming French threat
• Albany Plan of Union – a proposal for a
unified colonial government to exercise sole
authority over questions of war, peace, and
trade with the Indians
• The War and its Consequences
Pontiac’s War
• Considered one of the most famous Indian
wars for independence, named after the
Ottawa chief Pontiac, tribes in the Great Lakes
and the Ohio valley regions rallied against the
British
• Jefferey Amherst, the commander of the
British army in North America made the
situation worse for Indians
• A Delaware prophet named Neolin gave
spiritual force to Indian discontent and gained
a following
In December 1763 Scotch-Irish frontiersmen in Pennsylvania known as the
Paxton Boys slaughtered peaceful Conestoga Indians in an act of racial hatred
and later marched on Philadelphia in an act of frustration at their colonial
government’s failure to defend its frontiers
• Pontiac’s War was really a continuation of that
conflict, as Indian fighters who had not been
defeated refused to accept the conditions of peace
that Britain imposed and France accepted
• American Indians fought for their independence
against the British and compelled them to think
seriously about the place of Native peoples in the
British Empire
• The Royal Proclamation - established the
Appalachian as the boundary line between Indian
and colonial lands and stipulated “that no private
Person do presume to make any Purchase from the
said Indians”
The Peace of Paris, which
ended the Seven Years’ War,
left all of North America east of
the Mississippi in British hands,
ending the French presence on
the continent
Map 4.4 Eastern North America after the
Peace of Paris, 1763
Having one’s portrait painted was a mark of distinction in the 18th century,
usually only to the wealthy. Rarer still were portraits of sitters dressed in clothes
from other cultures as shown in these examples. Hendrick’s gold-braided coat,
ruffled shirt, and three cornered hat are all signs of a well dressed English
gentleman. Caldwell’s portrait was a private possession, commissioned after
the Revolutionary War.
What attitude do you think Hendrick and Caldwell intended to convey regarding
the other’s culture?